Cauthrien (strategy)
|} Ser Cauthrien is one of the hardest enemies in the game. She scales up to level 19 so it is not recommended to begin the quest to Rescue the Queen until your party is at least level 19. If you are having trouble dealing with her, this page may offer some insight and tips on how to defeat her. If you are really unable to defeat Ser Cauthrien during Rescue the Queen, it may be a better idea to surrender and engage Ser Cauthrien again just before the Landsmeet. Ser Cauthrien Capabilities *Ser Cauthrien is a two-handed warrior armed with: which has a chance to knockback an opponent with each hit. *Ser Cauthrien is a slow attacker. During the attack animation, there is more than enough time for the targeted party member to make 1 or even 2 actions. Ser Cauthrien does not hit often but deals tremendous damage when she does. Skills Backup Troops Ser Cauthrien is supported by 10 static archers, 2 melee warriors and 1 static mage. These support troops possess the following abilities combined: Depending upon difficulty level. Ser Cauthrien has tons or support.The best way to take her out is go back to where you came from only Ser Cauthrien and two other guards will follow you.Deal with them, then the mage and then the archers are pretty easy to take care off. NPC Recommendations *It is recommended that The Warden's party have a mage with healing skills. *It is recommended that the Warden's party have an archer. Equipment Recommendations *It is recommended to have a lot of health poultices and not be shy about using them. Using up to 50 potions is not uncommon. *It is recommened that mages have plenty of lyrium potions: Positioning Advice The majority of Ser Cauthrien's support troops are static and will not move from their positions. To take advantage of this, it is recommended to retreat the party to either Anora's room, the library or the corridor. Priority should be given to evacuating the healers whereas pets could be used to continually close the door. Casting Lifeward and Heroic Aura prior to initiating the dialogue can help to ensure survival. Playstyle Advice Spellcaster *If you are targeting Ser Cauthrien directly, here is a list of recommended spells to reduce her combat effectiveness: debuffs every enemy in the room, making them easier targets for AoE spells. *If you are targeting the enemy mage to prevent him from firing offensive spells or healing, below is a list of recommended spells to disable and/or take him out: *If you are targeting the support troops, below is a list of recommended area-of-effect spells. Prioritising Sleep, Blood Wound, Grease and/or Cone of Cold may be helpful in preventing the archers using Scattershot. Trap Layer If you know in advance where the enemy will be, it is possible to lay traps underneath the enemy combatants before talking to Anora. Fifty traps may be sufficient to kill Ser Cauthrien. 30-40 traps will be able to wear Ser Cauthrien down significantly if you place all traps in the hallway all the way to the far end and into the other room. If she hits most of them, she will be at <25% health, which will result in the rogue having so much threat that it's virtually impossible to peel her off. This can be used to your advantage if you, for example, cast Force Field on your rogue. Melee *The sword and shield warrior should use Shield Wall immediately and be equipped with decent armour. *Use Force Field on the warrior with highest threat. Ranged *A viable method is to use Leliana or any fighter with a ranged weapon to kill the archers at the entrance from a distance. *Kiting is possible with a mage with Crushing Prison and Stonefist. Start by casting Crushing Prison on Cauthrien. This will provide a lot of threat, enough to have the boss stuck on your mage the entire battle. It is very important to keep your mage on the move and to not stop until you reach the end of your selected kiting route. At this point throw Stonefist on the boss (and hope that she does not resist) and kite back the way you came from. During this time the rest of the party can safely shoot her with ranged weaponry. Anything that will slow Cauthrien down is a plus. *Kiting is possible with a character using the taunt ability to keep Ser Cauthrien in pursuit and away from the rest of the party, who should be using ranged attacks against her. Continue to run around the library using taunt, repeating until she is killed by the ranged attacks. Although time consuming and micro intensive, kiting strategies will allow even an underpowered party to emerge victorious without consuming an exorbitant amount of healing potions. Stealth This is a simple but effective strategy. As soon as the combat begins, set your party to Hold. Quickly get each ally in turn out of the room back to where you picked up Anora. Only Ser Cuathrien and two of her guards will follow you. This is few enough that they are not too hard to kill. Then if you wait in the back room briefly, combat mode will suspend and you can loot them, gaining the Summer Sword. At this point you can hold most of the party there, and heal. Using stealth mode, send your rogue in to dispatch the mage. Leave quickly and regain your health. Then go back to stealth mode, and repeat with the remaining guards one at a time. If you can get them to follow you out or near the door before killing them, you will be able to come back and loot them in the next round. You can repeat this until you have defeated them all. Alternatively, if you want to do the Captured! quest, leave a couple alive, and send your party in one at a time to be defeated by the holdouts. Quick Nuking With an efficient party it's possible to win the battle without running away from the room (even on Hard/Nightmare). A powerful mage with several instant-cast AoE spells and a dexterity based tank with high defense allow for a quick and relatively easy victory. As soon as the battle starts enter the Blood Magic mode and cast Blood Wound (a correct placement of the spell allows you to trap all but one enemy), then follow it up with a Fireball to one of the corners and, optionally, Mana Clash to one shot the mage. Now most of the archers should be dead or low on health but still paralyzed, and thus no longer a problem. Stinging Swarm is useful for finishing the archers as it will jump from one to another. Note that it's possible to substitute Blood Wound with Sleep/Waking Nightmare, as they're also instant-cast, but you'll need some extra damage dealing spells. Paralysis Explosion also works great here, but be careful not to trap your party. As long as your tank is good enough to hold off Ser Cauthrien while your mage kills everyone else, the victory should be yours. Debuffing Ser Cauthrien with Misdirection Hex is also an option, if you can afford it. Obviously, a second mage makes things even more easy. An alternate and likely easier strategy than the above is to immediately retreat to the corridor just outside the room Anora was being held in immediately when the battle starts. You should only be pursued by Cauthrien and maybe 2 or 3 of the guards. Once you dispatch them, the rest of the guards in the entry room will just be standing there doing nothing. With a perfectly placed Blood Wound, you can hit every single one of them at once, dropping them to near death. A second Blood Wound will kill them all. If you have other AOE spells, use them after casting Blood Wound, since everyone will be paralyzed and thus will be unable to avoid the attack. A win can similarly be achieved without a mage nuking so long as you have AoE stun/knockdown attacks (such as scattershot) at least two people in your party with at least one rank in Poison-Making, and least two or three flasks of three different types of grenades. The basic premise remains the same. The tank grabs aggro from Ser Cauthrien while the AoE stun/knockdowns target as much of the room as possible. While the archers recover and try to aim scattershot, quickly hit them with a volley of as many grenades as it takes to kill them. This should take about four on nightmare. Since each group of archers is tightly clustered, one grenade can hit a good number of them. Also, since the the use of one type of grenade doesn't subject other types to cooldown, it's possible to quickly kill a group of archers with a volley of different grenades before they fire their first scattershot. Doing this correctly on nightmare can kill both wings of archers in seconds leaving only the two in the middle left. If you have a third person with Poison-Making and enough grenades, it's possible (though more difficult) to get rid of the melee guards and the mage in the center in a similar manner. Mixing and matching the two techniques as needed is also an option. General Advice *The Warden's party is heavily outnumbered, so do whatever possible to even the odds. *Prioritize targets. After tackling the key opponents, at that point, her guards should be easier to defeat. *Your other party members will most likely die fast. You can try and keep them alive as long as possible by using the health potions, but they will most likely die early on. *Immediately before the cutscene, it is possible to have a mage cast e.g. Blizzard prior to entering the room to get a headstart. It should be targeted as not to freeze your party after the dialogue completes. Targeting the middle group (at the door) and furthest group (left of the door) generated the best results leaving the closest group on the right untouched. Just before Blizzard is cast, begin entering the room. The goal is for it to be cast right before you enter dialogue. This should knock everyone to the ground as the dialogue begins. Quickly select option 2 and exit the room. *It is also a good idea to seal off the door with a Glyph of Repulsion. Ser Cauthrien will be able to pass through the glyph, all others will be trapped inside the room. Combining this with the strategy above allows you to fight with Ser Cauthrien alone while the soldiers are damaged by the area effect spells. A Storm of the Century will easily clear the entire room. *If you just run back away from the exits, only Ser Cauthrien and the two melee guards will follow you. The mage and archers will stay by the exit. *It is especially important to get out of the archers' line of sight as soon as possible. The hardest part of the battle is getting damaged and stunned by 10 Scattershots in a row. Since Scattershot auto-hits there are few ways to resist the stun and while you're stunned Cauthrien will whack you for around 150 damage per hit which is not pleasant. *If you do not wish to exit the room, then the key to victory is to prevent the archers from using Scattershot. Use any crowd control spell like blood wound, waking nightmare, paralytic explosion (cast glyph of repulsion on the ground before the fight) and even grease, but the key is to use them immediately. *Ser Cauthrien can easily be killed with Soldier's Bane poison on your weapon. She will not have the stamina to activate her abilities. I used one Concentrated Soldier's Bane and she went down very easily on Hard setting @ level 18 (With two mages and just her vs the party) The Second Encounter Should The Warden surrender to Cauthrien, another opportunity to fight her will arise when arriving at the Landsmeet where she will accost the party in order to prevent interference in the proceedings. At this point, she will only have a few guards with her, but both Cauthrien and her guards will need to be tackled at the same time since any fight will take place in a small room. Fighting her in the Arl of Denerim's estate may still prove to be an easier battle, provided Cauthrien can be isolated from her men. Category:Strategies